Last year about a quarter of all the oil and gas wells drilled in
California were fracked and with no regulation in place,
companies are rushing to dig some more. California is prone to
droughts and earthquakes, leaving residents worried about how
fracking could affect their water supply and the potential for an
earth shaking disaster.

Southern California is known for its pristine coastline, but just
a few miles away from the ocean lays a one-thousand acre oil
field, right in the middle of Los Angeles.

“I didn’t buy here thinking this was going to happen in my
backyard. I would have had second thoughts about living
here,” said Gary Gless, a Los Angeles resident who lives
just a few miles from the Inglewood Oil Field.

Gless and his neighbors are seeing their dream homes crack before
their eyes and they blame the increased production at the oil
fields next door.

When homeowners moved in, they say they were assured the wells
were dry. Following recent methane leaks, however, residents
found out that drilling picked up, and that the exploration
company, PXP, is actually using fracking to extract oil.

“Fracking is happening completely unregulated in the state of
California,” said Brenna Norton, an organizer with Food and
Water Watch. “Oil and gas companies don’t have to say where
they frack or what chemicals they are injecting into water,
possibly close to your drinking water,” Norton added.

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is the process of pumping
high-pressure water, chemicals and solids into the ground to
fracture the rock, and extract fuel that would otherwise be
unavailable.

PXP, which operates the largest urban oil field in America, is
conducting its own study as to what sort of effects fracking will
have on this neighborhoodBut neighbors here are worried they will
never have true answers about what is really happening underneath
their homes.

“Wastewater injection from fracking is linked to earthquakes
and property damage. The US geological survey linked wastewater
wells from fracking to earthquakes,” said Norton.

The concern over seismic activity is especially high in the Los
Angeles area because of the oil field’s proximity to the
Newport-Inglewood fault, which according to the Federal Emergency
Management Agency, has the potential of a 7.4 magnitude
earthquake.

“In many places where you have large amounts of water
injected in broken rock, it tends to move either on the surface
or in depth,” said Dr. Tom Williams, a retired geologist and
oil industry insider.

That movement, experts say, could pose a danger to an area all
too familiar with disaster.

In 1963, the Baldwin Hills Reservoir collapsed, killing five
people and destroying 60 homes. Geologists concluded that decades
of extraction in the neighboring oil field led to the rupture in
the dam.

Today, cracked foundations and buckling roadways have neighbors
worried about losing their homes.

“The foundation, I don’t know what is going on under my
house. If we do get an earthquake, I’m sure that with all these
cracks it will probably rip it all open,” said Los Angeles
resident Rosa Tatum.

“The state couldn’t afford any type of damage, not just from
the earthquakes but the millions of gallons of contaminated water
that they’ll be pumping into the ground,” said Gless.

The oil and gas industry has launched a public relations campaign
claiming fracking is safe since it has been happening for
decades.

“1.2 million times that fracking has occurred in this country
there has not been a single incident of reported of water
contamination,” said Dave Quast, from Energy in Depth, an
advocacy group for the oil and gas industry.

Quast’s claims come after US Environmental Protection Agency
report in Wyoming, in which federal regulators said fracking was
the probable cause of tainted water supplies.

The industry has also launched an offensive to confront
regulation and criticism.

“These fossil fuel giants influence policy enormously. They
spent $747 million lobbying Congress to get this Safe Water
Drinking Act exemption. That is a contamination of our
democracy,” said Josh Fox, director of the Oscar nominated
documentary, “Gasland”

The efforts of big oil and gas have only emboldened the
anti-fracking movement on the west coast of the US, as activists
and community members attempt to ban the controversial drilling
technique in California.